


Per Sempre

by sheafrotherdon



Category: The Old Guard (Movie)
Genre: Early Mornings, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25345465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: He can imagine no hell worse than the places he has already visited, nor a heaven filled with love greater than that which he finds in Nicky’s gaze.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 63
Kudos: 548





	Per Sempre

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to siria for beta.

Joe begins the day with prayer, always. Still.

His thoughts about the divine are complicated. In a thousand years he’s had ample opportunity to witness the best and worst of what can be done in the name of God, and he wonders, often, if divinity or its lack is responsible for his dying and waking breath. He has seen too much to covet an afterlife. He can imagine no hell worse than the places he has already visited, nor a heaven filled with love greater than that which he finds in Nicky’s gaze. But there are times when the ineffable fills him, when a moment is weighed with such beauty and consequence that he cannot find words for the experience and some concept of the divine slips into that place. 

He can say for sure that his faith in Andy, in Nicky, in Nile gives structure to his long and improbable life. There is certainty to be had in their meeting and walking beside one another. There is certainty too in giving his mind over to the quiet of ancient words, and if he thinks at all when he prays, it’s of the many mornings that have begun this way.

He presses his forehead to the rug on which he kneels, and when he sits back, he smiles.

After prayer there is coffee. In this small apartment, tucked high amid the rooftops of the city, it means espresso brewed in a silver pot, and two small cups that are out of proportion to the breadth of his hands.

“Mi amor,” he says softly as he places a cup on the bedside table beside Nicky. “É mattina.”

“No,” Nicky grumbles, sighing as he turns his back to Joe. For nine-hundred years he has clung to sleep this way.

Joe laughs quietly, carefully rounding the bed and setting down his cup before climbing back in beside his love. “Yes,” he says simply, cupping Nicky’s jaw.

“Mmmph.” Nicky’s eyes open slowly, but his frown dissipates when he sees Joe, and fades into a small, happy smile. “Buongiorno.”

Joe leans in and kisses him softly. “It is a beautiful day.”

They begin the day like this, always. Still. To Joe, it is as necessary as prayer to feel the warmth of Nicky’s body beside his, to bend his head and kiss a shoulder, his temple, to lift Nicky’s hand and press a kiss to his palm. There is an unnamable power that knits Joe’s body together when it’s broken, but this is his healing – to settle beside Nicky and look at his face, so dear to him that his heart aches with the gift of it, to wrap his arms around him and hold him close as the sun dances across their bodies.

They both died yesterday, as they do so many other days. Some mornings these lazy touches and glancing kisses might become heated, might lead to the tangle of their limbs and a cresting pleasure that has never dimmed despite their many years. But after death comes rebirth, comes adrenaline, comes exhaustion once the danger is done, and so, on mornings like these, they press lips to the places where bullets once split flesh and bone, where blades cut and blood spilled. There are no marks. There is just memory, the act of looking for one another as they came alive, the devotion of witnessing the other’s pain.

“Il mio cuore è tutto per te,” Joe whispers at last. He splays his fingers over Nicky’s heart to feel the gentle thud of its working against his flesh.

Nicky smiles, covers Joe’s hand with his and touches their foreheads together. “Ti amo,” he murmurs, a coaxing, a reassurance. He breathes slowly. “Per sempre.”

“Per sempre,” Joe repeats, and the intonation is its own kind of prayer.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Per Sempre](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25371502) by [AceOfTigers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceOfTigers/pseuds/AceOfTigers)




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